


the little lord

by endlessnorth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (unfortunately), Canon Compliant, F/M, Outsider Perspective, Post Season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 19:10:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19301998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlessnorth/pseuds/endlessnorth
Summary: The little lord becomes beloved by Storm’s End. He is perfect. He is kind and handsome and he loves his people. He is everything a good lord should be.There’s only one thing wrong with that man, everyone says. Only one thing, and that is that he hasn’t got a lady.





	the little lord

The smallfolk  call him the little lord.

The name started as a sort of a  jape, perhaps a remark to his humble beginnings or his spring-green youth. _The little lord doesn’t know what he’s doing,_ the townsfolk would comment. They aren’t stupid - they know what makes a good leader and they’re not sure that this bastard blacksmith has it. Poor men who find themselves in a position of wealth are rarely concerned about anything but the riches they have now, and the Stormlanders have gone far too long without a proper lord for the idea to be anything but uncomforting.

Then the little lord begins to leave his castles and high walls to visit the people of Storm’s End. He goes into their shops and homes, never asking them to bow or bend the knee. He sits at the same table as the peasants do. He eats the same hard bread as them, drinks the same stale mead.  He hears all of their complaints - how the enforcers are far too strict, how the children rarely have anything to eat - and he _listens_.

They begin to like the little lord, and when they call him by that name it is rarely without fondness. _The little lord visited me today, one woman says in the marketplace. He gave my little girl a toy, a bronze stag made by his own hand._ She holds it up like a prize before her daughter reaches up and tugs it away, clasping it close to her chest.

 _The little lord is nothing like his father,_ others say. _Hardly ever touches the drink or the whores.  He’s nearly sane._ A young boy smiles that _the little lord gave my father a new job today, and now he sleeps much better._

So the little lord becomes beloved by Storm’s End. He is perfect. He is kind and handsome and he loves his people. He is everything a good lord should be.

 _There’s only one thing wrong with that man,_ the smallfolk say. _Only one thing, and that is that he hasn’t got a lady._

-

It doesn’t take long after the little lord’s arrival for the betrothal requests  to begin. Storm’s End is a prize, and even if the little lord used to be a lowborn he isn’t anymore, so he is a prize too. The highborn ladies of the Six Kingdoms are eager to claim his hand now, to wed him and birth children to carry on the Baratheon name. It is no question that he will be married, only to whom the lucky girl will be.

The smallfolk watch with interest as the first riding party arrives in the Storm’s End. The young woman who steps out of the carriage is of the Arryn name. She is beautiful, with rosy lips and fair hair. Any other man would fall at her feet in an instant, but the little lord only takes her hand, presses a stiff kiss to it, and leaves quickly to his quarters, as though he cannot stand to be near this girl for more than an instant.

Two days later, the Lady Arryn leaves unpromised to any man, bowing her face in some kind of personal shame of the rejection. The little lord does not seem any worse for it; in fact he seems much happier, as though some kind of weight has been lifted off of his shoulders. It is quite peculiar, even unsettling, but the smallfolk love their little lord so much that they are merely glad for his joy.

-

So it continues. Lady after lady comes to Storm’s End, each one bearing great beauty and an even greater name, and the little lord turns each of them away. One after the other they leave with their silks and gold. Some weep as they are led out. Some seethe. The little lord seems uncaring either way.

Some say that perhaps he’s taken after his uncle Renly, that perhaps he has more interest in men than the fairer sex. Some, though,  whisper that he is waiting for another woman, for some lost love of the forest. One stable boy jests to the lord about this as he saddles his master’s horse, asking if there’s some fair maiden out there who’s already won his heart.

The stable master smacks the boy upside the head, telling him to show some respect. The little lord assures him that it’s quite alright, that the boy was only saying it in jest. Even so, neither of them miss the pained look that crosses the man’s face or the way he stays out on his ride far past midnight, only returning when the sun is nearly above the horizon.

-

The first letter from Braavos arrives eight moons after the little lord comes to Storm’s End.

When it does, the little lord snatches it from the letter bearer and retreats to his room. He does not come out for hours, and when he does his mouth is in a broad smile. He says nothing at dinner. Ser Davos notices this and lets the poor man be. He remarks that it’s hard to speak when one is too busy grinning like a fool.

-

Nobody is quite sure what the letter says, only that it must be very dear to the little lord’s heart, for he keeps it near him at all times. It is never far from his person, always tucked close to him like a treasure. He rereads it often, during meals and meetings and on long evening walks, and no matter how many times he does so the words always seem to bring him joy.

-

A servant girl is cleaning the lord’s quarters when she spies the letter out on his desk. Intrigued she sets down her rag and pail of water, creeping over to the table on silent feet. Her mother taught her to read many seasons ago, before she died from a bout of grayscale, and though she hasn’t practiced her letters in a long time...

...she leans forward on tiptoe and places one slender finger on the edge of the paper, ready to snatch it up and devour the words her lord has kept secret for so long.

Outside in the hallway, a door slams.

The servant girl stumbles backward, releasing her hold on the paper and tumbling into the pail of water. She curses when she sees how her skirts have been soaked, and swears even louder when she realizes someone is coming.

She grabs her pail and her rag and dashes  into the hallway, running into the chest of the little lord. He catches her quickly in surprise, asking if anything’s wrong before setting her back on her feet and handing her the rag. She shakes her head,  says _sorry, milord_ and goes down the hall, leaving the man puzzled for a moment before he continues his stride down the corridor.

The servant girl goes to bed that night with a thudding heart and a guilty  mind. She should not have read the letter, but even so she cannot shake the name she saw at the bottom of the letter, written in a beautiful script, in the hand of a lady-

_Arya._

-

The strange woman rides into Storm’s End on the summer solstice.

One of the guards spots her riding up to the gates in the early morning. Her dark hair is unbound, casting itself about her shoulders in the wind, but even with it lashing about there is no mistaking the steel-gray of her eyes, trained hard on the castle.

She rides up to the man posted at the gate, dismounting and slipping the horse’s reins into her hands in the same practiced motion. She asks to speak with the lord.

_The lord is busy._

The woman’s shoulders go tense, her eyes a winter storm, and for a moment the guard is _afraid_ of her. _I’m a friend. You will let me in, or you can tell him to come out here himself._

The guard’s mouth twitches. _Then that’s what I’ll do._ The young woman shrugs and reaches up to stroke her mare’s head, unbothered.

The little lord emerges irritated some time later, asking what this visitor has to say, and then his eyes catch her.

His arms go stiff; his shoulders hunch, and then suddenly, right there where everyone can see the little lord scoops the strange woman up in his arms with unimaginable tenderness, and the woman’s laugh echoes around the woods.  The peasants who work outside the walls set their tools down and watch with wide eyes as their little lord presses a gentle kiss to the crown of the woman’s head, arms banding tightly around her waist and tears streaming down his face as she buries her face into his neck, clinging to him as tightly as he is to her.

When he finally sets her down the woman places a hand to his cheek and smiles. Then she kisses the little lord almost bruisingly, her lips crushed to his like he is a breath of fresh air.

The guardsman leaves, well assured that they are friends indeed.

-

The woman has many names. She’s Arya and Lady Stark and _milady_ and she’s Arry too, although only the little lord ever calls her that. It gets confusing after a while, what’s right and what’s not, so soon she becomes the she-wolf.

The little lord doesn’t like that one.  He says she’s really not all that wild, and when he does the she-wolf elbows him _hard_ and says that she likes the name fine.

So then he starts to call her that too, with more tenderness in his voice than awe,  and then she starts to like it less. _It sounded fierce before, and you ruined it._

The maids say she’s taken up quarters with the little lord. They say sometimes they come into their room when the sun is high in the sky and they are still tangled together in the sheets, and it isn’t difficult to guess what had been done the night before.

The gardeners say they go on walks together. Once the little lord picked a rose from the gardens and placed it carefully behind her ear, and although she called it stupid and smelly and something her sister would have liked, she kept  it there for the whole day, touching it every so often to make sure it hadn’t fallen out.

They expect her to go home to Winterfell eventually. It’s too warm in the South for a direwolf. But she stays a month, then a year, then two.

 _He ought to just marry her and get it over with,_ the head cook says with a touch of amusement. _No need for them to prance around like lovers on a tryst._

 _She’d never marry him,_ a serving girl replies. _Don’t you know that she-wolves can’t be tamed?_

**Author's Note:**

> you can come find me on tumblr @endlessnorth :)


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